Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Saturday morning I sat in Noble Coffee with my clients, Randy
and Kathy, just 4 blocks from the house they’re buying, talking about their
plan to become "free-range parents.” They’re trading a vinyl-sided house
in a typical suburban subdivision for a 150-year-old home in Old Town
Noblesville, a traditional neighborhood with tree-lined streets and easy
pedestrian and bike connections to stores, restaurants, parks, and schools.

They're excited at the prospect of their children having more
independence. They anticipate letting their 9, 11, and 13-year-old kids walk to
Alexander's for ice cream, bike to the Forest Park over the footbridge, or take
their overnight friends to breakfast at Rosie’s or the Uptown. But we also acknowledged
that giving 9 to 13-year-old children that kind of freedom terrifies most
parents today. But do just a little research about what actually threatens kids
in modern America and you quickly discover that this fear is utterly
irrational.

Utterly!

Randy recalls moving freely around Cincinnati at the age of 10
or 12. Kathy was a farm girl who often rode her bike several miles to hang out
with friends. “I was supposed to call and check in with my mom when I got
there, but often forgot. I’d be gone all day and my parents seldom worried.” My
childhood was the same, I was free-range in my hometown, free to explore
downtown stores, catch frogs in the creek and play homerun derby on side
streets. Everybody’s parents were free-range parents.

But in a single generation, what was completely normal has become borderline criminal. Recently in Silver Springs Maryland, the parents of 10-year-old Rafi and
6-year-old Dvora Meitiv were found guilty of child neglect for allowing them to
walk home from the park. Their case and others have sparked a national debate about a
generation of parents who have seemingly bound their children in bubble wrap
and sequestered them in homes and gated communities. When I ask parents what
they’re afraid of, the almost universal answer is abduction or molestation.

Is that fear well-founded?

The most recent study on the issue found that in a given year,
115 American children were abducted by a stranger. There are more abductions,
but most children are abducted by family members, not strangers on the street.
In his book The Science of Fear, Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't – and Put Ourselves in
Greater Danger, Daniel Gardner found that American children are far more likely to choke
to death on food than be abducted. But how many parents worry when their kids
are eating? Also in a typical year approximately 3,000 children die in auto
accidents.

We don’t let our kids move freely around our community because
we’re afraid of abduction? But turns out it’s 26 times more likely they’ll be
killed while we’re driving them around in a car. The illusion of safety in having them
near confuses the actual threat. And what about our kids being molested? Statistics
again show we fear the absolute wrong thing. The person overwhelmingly most
likely to molest our kids are soccer coaches, piano teachers, youth pastors, and
. . . uncle Joe – people they know well.

And, by the way, there’s absolutely no evidence there’s more
child abduction or molestation now than there was 30, 50, or 100 years ago. We
simply talk about it now. And talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about
it. The evening news and television crime shows amplify each rare incident for
its emotional gut-punch and titillation value. It gooses our inner-most fears
and so garners our attention, leaving us thinking there are predators hiding behind
every corner.

Will our kids be victims of our crime-ridden society if we let
them roam free? It’s possible, but what most Americans also don’t know is that
violent crime is at a 30-year low.

My ex-wife and I and our Old Town neighbors were free-range
parents before the term existed. The cluster of parents on our block allowed kids
to move freely from yard to yard and the 3rd and 4th
graders walked the six blocks to the elementary school in groups of two or
more. As they got a couple years older, they rode bikes to downtown
restaurants, the river and Forest Park. But more than once, a subdivision
parent who dropped their child off to spend the night or play for the afternoon
called us in anger after realizing we’d let them walk a few blocks with
other kids to the square for ice cream in the afternoon or for
pancakes on a Saturday morning.

So how do most modern American children spend their free time?
Studies show that over 90% of their time is spent in front of TV, video gaming
systems, and hand-held electronic devices. This one-generation avalanche of
change isn’t just depriving children of learning independence. Visit any
American school today and you’ll note the large number of overweight children
and teenagers. Instead of moving about their neighborhood and community getting
exercise and directing their own activites, they’re sitting on their butts
consuming brain candy.

And when they head out to activities it’s behind the wheel of
the family urban assault vehicle to adult-directed sports where scores of parents sit, watching
breathlessly. When I was a kid, the parents dropped you off and came back when practice was over - or you walk there and back on your own. Somehow I, and my peers survived. But in a single generation we created a nation of overweight children
who are deprived of time to direct their own activities – something that was
normal and expected for all previous generations of American kids. That free-range
world is where they burned off calories, learned to solve problems on their
own, learned to lead, and came to understand how their communities
worked.

But my clients Randy and Kathy are ready to be free-range parents. Randy
lamented his children had been living in a “landlocked place” – a modern
American subdivision. They are going to give that up and allow their children
to roam the sidewalks of the tree line streets – within reason.

And of course the term “free-range parent,” has it kinda
backwards. It’s the kids who become free-range. As long as they're home before
the street lights come on, isn’t that a better way to live?

Followers

About Me

The Contrarian's work has appeared in the Noblesville Daily Ledger, The Noblesville Times, NUVO Newsweekly, The Indianapolis Eye (web-based), The Noblesville Current, and at www.dailyyonder.com. He is the co-founder of the literary journal, the Polk Street Review, where his stories also appear. His novel, Stardust was published in 2002 and has just been republished again under the title "Noblesville," by River's Edge Media. His 2nd novel, The Salvage Man, was released August of 2015 by River's Edge. Kurt is a former school teacher and a Realtor.